Lead
by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, an army
of misguided Christian fundamentalists, the Religious Right, continues to
push for tearing down the “wall of separation” established by America’s
founding fathers. They claim there is no “wall of separation,” and that the
framers of the Constitution intended that America be a Christian nation,
implying that America’s laws should reflect biblical law. A brief survey of
America’s history, taken from Robert Boston's
Why The Religious Right Is Wrong, reveals what life in America was like before our
Constitution was adopted when in fact Christian theocrats did rule the
colonies.

In Massachusetts the
Puritans supposedly came to America seeking religious freedom, but freedom
for whom? The only freedom they promoted was freedom for themselves. They
established a theocratic rule regulating every aspect of life based upon
their interpretation of the bible.

The iconoclastic
preacher Roger Williams complained that the state should have no place
enforcing orthodoxy and argued for freedom of conscience. His view of the
Puritan rule was that “no tenant…is so heretical, blasphemous, seditious,
and dangerous…as persecution for the cause of conscience.” The Massachusetts
civil authorities decided every citizen including Williams should take a
loyalty oath to the governor. Williams refused! The Puritan leaders took
Williams to court and found him guilty of “disseminating new and dangerous
opinions” and banished him from the colony.

Anne Hutchinson was
expelled by Governor Winthrop because she dared to hold unauthorized
meetings in her home. John Wheelwright was tried, found guilty, and banished
because his preaching was heretical. A band of Quakers were hanged by these
Puritan Christians. Massachusetts’ most notable act of church/state
theocratic rule was the Salem witch trials of 1692. Nineteen women were
accused of witchcraft. Since the bible states “thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live” (Ex 22:18) the state’s obligatory punishment was obvious. State
authorities in conjunction with church leaders hanged eighteen women and
crushed the nineteenth to death with stones.

Quakers were cruelly
persecuted in almost every colony. William Penn founded Pennsylvania to
establish religious toleration. Though the toleration was a step forward,
it was extended primarily to Protestants. Roman Catholics could conduct
religious services, but were subject to periodic raids from neighboring
Maryland.

In Virginia, the
Anglican Church was the state church. Quakers and Catholics were barred.
Baptists were often imprisoned or publicly whipped. Those who spoke
impiously of the Trinity or Christian faith could be executed. Parents who
failed to have their children baptized were fined. Non-attendance at church
merited a fine for the first offense and a whipping for subsequent offenses.
Those who cursed got the “bodkin” treatment, a sharp dagger thrust through
the tongue.

Outside of Roger
William’s Rhode Island, true religious liberty and respect for an
individual’s conscience was not practiced in any of the colonies. Citizens
were taxed to support churches, strict Sunday Sabbath laws were enforced,
blasphemy was a capital offense, and public office was available only to
those men who acknowledged certain Christian doctrine.

This was America, the
Christian nation without a “wall of separation” between church and state,
where clergy used their infallible bible to dictate who was an offense to
the theocracy so civil authorities would carry out the necessary
punishments. This was the America that spawned the thinking of Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison that sought an answer to how true religious
freedom could be achieved without hindering the practice of religion. Their
conclusion: a secular nation that showed no favoritism toward any religion.

Their initial
legislative effort was in Virginia. Presbyterians appealed to Madison to
deliver them from “a long night of Ecclesiastical bondage” asking that
church establishments be “pulled down, and every tax upon conscience and
private judgment be abolished” so that Virginia might become an “asylum for
free inquiry.” Patrick Henry, famed for the phrase “give me liberty or give
me death,” still biased to Christianity, sought legislation to levy a tax to
support ministers of the Christian religion. Opposition from Baptists and
other minorities was swift and angry. Madison called Henry’s proposal
“obnoxious on account of its dishonorable principle and dangerous tendency.”
Henry’s proposal favoring Christianity was soundly defeated in 1785.

Baptist minister John
Leland reflected the thoughts of Christians fighting for religious freedom.
In response to Jefferson’s letter explaining the “wall of separation” to
Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, Leland wrote, “Government should protect
every man in thinking and speaking freely…all should be equally free.” On
another occasion Leland wrote, “Let man worship one God, twenty Gods, or no
God, be he Jew, Turk, Pagan, or Infidel, he is eligible to any office in the
state.”

The Constitution
fashioned in 1787, largely by Madison, is a secular document. It makes no
mention of God, Jesus Christ, a Supreme Being, or the Ten Commandments.
Thus, the Constitution’s Article 6 reads, “No religious test shall ever be
required as a qualification to any public office.” The First Amendment
reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is this secular document
showing no religious favoritism which is responsible for freedom of religion
and conscience unique to America.

Today’s Christian
fundamentalist preachers and politicians rejecting the “wall of separation,”
preaching the Christian nation myth, detest everybody’s freedom but their
own. Like their arrogant “busy body” Puritan forefathers, they seek to
interfere in an individual’s private decisions by imposing their religious
dogma. They constitute the most insidious, immoral, destructive movement in
America and must be taken to task.